At times, it's hard to figure out whether the Russellville City Council takes more inspiration from Bush and Cheney or from Rogers and Hammerstein.

Like the federal government, the city has a pattern of spending more money than it takes in. And like Ado Annie, the character in "Oklahoma," we're just a city who can't say no to spending.

A year or two ago, the big worry was that the city's cash balance might drop below $400,000, which was described as the minimum needed to guarantee enough money would be on hand for payroll.

Last month, the treasurer was authorized to cash in a quarter-million-dollar CD to cover bills. The city dodged that bullet when some revenue came in just before bills were due, but the money may be needed next month.

But that's not enough. Now there's a plan to use $1 million in regular city funds earmarked for a street project to cover other expenses. Money available from the seven-eighths-cent sales tax for street and drainage work would pay the city's obligations in the project.

This is a bad idea, for two reasons. First, the 16th Street project was already in the works when the city made the pitch for the sales tax; it wasn't part of the package of street work sold to voters. Using the sales tax money might be technically legal, but it may well cause voters to look askance at the next capital improvement project the city might try to fund when this particular tax expires. This tax is too useful a tool to let it slip away for a temporary benefit.

Second, dipping into reserves so early and so often is like pouring money into a bucket without even trying to patch the holes. Looking at the budget and seeing what the city can do without is a task that can start today; we don't have to wait until the next budget year, when the reserves are gone and the election is over.

The city needs to listen to Alan Greenspan's advice to Congress: "The longer we wait ... the more wrenching the fiscal adjustment ultimately will be."

A temporary hiring freeze and shifting the duties for senior firefighters and police officers would be better than a permanent staff cut. A temporary suspension of the home storage program for police cars or the resource officer in schools program would be far better than losing those entirely.

That's the short-term fix. The long-term solution is to get a handle on spending (by saying "no" to some of the requests that show up on the agenda), to build up an emergency fund and to take a hard look at whether the needs of the city are enough to justify adding a 1-mill city property tax (and then selling the idea to the voters).

A city is not a business that has to return a profit; its job is to provide services to the community. But it must stay solvent if it is to continue those services.